The Challenge
The Customer was working through a partnership disaggregation from a consortium IT Service to regain IT autonomy, underpinned by a strategic MSP partnership to augment limited in-house IT skills. The Customer went to market to seek a single supplier to accelerate the immediate requirement and support their long-term digital strategy to modernise IT with 'better use of data for insights and improvements'. With data sovereignty being a key concern for the Customer, a UK-based service provider was essential.
The Solution
The Customer engaged Exponential-e to deliver a fully managed IT service, including:
- End to end migration of critical systems and workloads into Azure.
- UK-based Managed Cloud Services for Azure-based workloads.
- Dedicated IaaS for localised/sensitive workloads
- UK-based user service desk for ~400 end users.
- Onsite support function.
- Lifecycle management of end user devices.
- Local Area Network deployment and management.
- Wide Area Network.
The full stack solution provided excellent value to the Customer, allowing them to accelerate the disaggregation through a single supplier partnership.
The solution was fully delivered by Exponential-e delivery services - Project Management, Azure Migration Specialists, User Specialists, Service Management and Onboarding Teams over a period of eight months. This ensured the project was delivered on time and budget to meet the transition targets defined by the Customer.
Solution Benefits
- Deployment and configuration of CAF-aligned Azure Landing Zones.
- Azure Migrate-based migration of Windows Server and Linux Virtual Servers to Azure.
- Migration of 9TB file data to Azure Files.
- Infrastructure resiliency with Azure Site Recovery and Azure Backup.
- Deployment of Intune and MEM for unified device management.
- Unified identity services through Microsoft Entra.
- Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365.
- Seamless cutover of user support services.
- Optimised wireless network coverage within key user locations.
- Three-Year Azure Savings Plan for cost control over contract terms.
Azure Stack HCI
The Good, The Bad & The Hybrid
In this exclusive whitepaper from Exponential-e's Cloud transformation specialist, James Pearce, discover how the next generation of hyperconverged infrastructure is transforming the way organisations design, deploy, and manage cutting-edge IT infrastructure, along with a proven roadmap for its successful implementation.
In today's interconnected society, our data is a fundamental part of our personal and professional lives, informing everything from the way we communicate and collaborate with our colleagues to the way we do our weekly shop. Seamless, secure flows of data have transformed the way we access many critical services and helped bring a rich vein of new innovations to market, but as with any period of intensive technological evolution, these benefits have come at a price…
In a highly unpredictable geopolitical landscape, the growing volumes of data created, stored, and transferred by public sector and enterprise organisations present an extremely attractive target for bad actors, as does corporations' intellectual property and citizens' personal data. It's unsurprising that organisations across the public and private sectors are treating the continued integrity of their data as a critical priority – not only to avoid the financial and reputational consequences of a breach, but also to provide customers and prospects with assurance that their critical data will always be protected, both at rest and in transit.
Data sovereignty is a key part of this journey, by which we mean – in the broadest sense – guarantees over the geographical locations in which data may be stored. Most technology providers will already have such guarantees in place, typically involving the location of their hosting environments. However, with the now near-ubiquity of Cloud platforms and the growing complexity of security and compliance, the nature of true data sovereignty is no longer so clear.
With this in mind, consider the following questions when evaluating Cloud providers…
Is your Cloud provider fully incorporated in your desired location? While they may maintain hosting environments there, can they say the same for the Cloud platforms you will be utilising, particularly if they are operating as part of a larger umbrella company? If not, you cannot guarantee that your data will remain within the country when in transit, which may lead to compliance and security issues
Will they maintain full jurisdictional control of all data? Related to the above point, with several governments having now implemented regulations that grant them access to data stored in Cloud platforms (e.g. the US Cloud Act), providers must be able to guarantee that customer data will never be subject to such overreach. This is especially critical for any sort of public sector data, particularly Government and defence.
Can they specify which personnel have access to their Cloud platforms? Again, all engineers who will be maintaining the Cloud platform and acting on behalf of customers must be based in their sovereign nation, with the appropriate clearances and certifications in place.
Does their data sovereignty extend to their disaster recovery and business continuity practices? The sovereignty of data centres must extend to back-up environments, which must also be located in the designated geographical region, with air gapping, data encryption, and zero-trust security measures utilised as appropriate, and all of this subject to annual audit.
Will they maintain full jurisdictional control of all data? Related to the above point, with several governments having now implemented regulations that grant them access to data stored in Cloud platforms (e.g. the US Cloud Act), providers must be able to guarantee that customer data will never be subject to such overreach. This is especially critical for any sort of public sector data, particularly Government and defence.
Can they specify which personnel have access to their Cloud platforms? Again, all engineers who will be maintaining the Cloud platform and acting on behalf of customers must be based in their sovereign nation, with the appropriate clearances and certifications in place.
Does their data sovereignty extend to their disaster recovery and business continuity practices? The sovereignty of data centres must extend to back-up environments, which must also be located in the designated geographical region, with air gapping, data encryption, and zero-trust security measures utilised as appropriate, and all of this subject to annual audit.
This is why Exponential-e has continued to develop our ability to guarantee true data sovereignty, in direct response to the evolving digital and geopolitical landscapes. To this end, we were recently certified as a VMware Sovereign Partner, reflecting our ability to provide complete assurance around the sovereignty and control of digital assets. The are multiple dimensions to this, including our hosting facilities, support, management, regional jurisdictions, security clearances, and ability to deliver complementary services, such as Bring Your own Key (BYoK) and both shared and dedicated Cloud environments. As a proudly UK-based company for more than twenty years, our full range of solutions is designed with true sovereignty inherent in the design – something we continue to develop in response to the latest regulations, geopolitical shifts, and security challenges.
If you are in any way concerned about the sovereignty of your data and your key platforms, do not hesitate to reach out to our team, who will guide you through these challenges, ensuring you can continue your Cloud journey with complete peace of mind.
Organisations' demands of their IT infrastructure continue to evolve at an unprecedented rate, with the drive for growth and innovation needing to be balanced against the need to maintain cost control, visibility, and - crucially, cyber security. Numerous solutions have emerged in response to these challenges, but one of the most pivotal questions organisations must answer is whether to host their critical data and applications on-site, or in the Cloud.
Let's explore the respective advantages and disadvantages of both approaches, and then consider whether the increasing sophistication of modern workloads demand a new approach...
Although the sector as a whole has traditionally been comparatively wary of the ever-increasing pace of technology, legal services are increasingly data driven, with an abundance of AI-related discussion emerging within legal technology circles. The core Document Management Systems (DMS) and Practice Management Systems (PMS) remain the centre of focus for how and where to deploy a variety of rapidly maturing SaaS platforms, or dedicated, highly customised suites.
Although digital transformation amongst Legal firms has typically been comparatively slow compared to other sectors, the journey has picked up speed over the course of the last decade.
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